How to Motivate Your Family to Become Healthier

ad content: The great health benefits of leading a healthy lifestyle and staying healthy cannot be over-emphasized; a healthy lifestyle has many benefits not only for the body but for the mind too. And, if you follow then you can limit the risk of having some health problems that can affect your overall health and prevent chronic diseases and long-term illnesses.

There are numerous benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, which can positively impact physical, mental, and social wellbeing. The World Health Organization defines health as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely absence of illness/infirmity. This means that health is a tool to support an individual’s function in wider society, rather than an end in itself.

A healthful lifestyle provides the means to lead a full life with meaning and purpose. ‘Healthy living’ simply means balancing the determinants of health (physical and mental). Achieving and maintaining a healthy life is never an easy task, being healthy is more than getting fit and feeling better alone, it’s about staying that way too. Leading a healthy lifestyle is important for everyone, taking proper care of our physical health helps improve our outward looks and we tend to be more relaxed and fit, also, able to cope with things; being mentally upright can lift your mood and help you feel better. 

ACHIEVING AND MAINTAINING A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE BOTH PHYSICALLY AND MENTALLY

Mental and physical healths are probably the two most widely discussed types of health. This does not mean that other determinants of health like social, emotional, and spiritual health have less impact on our overall health. Both physical and mental health is much more an area to focus more on because they have a greater impact on the overall health, when an individual is having poor physical health, it can easily affect the mental health and vice versa.

Achieving and staying motivated in those areas may be difficult and people tend to approach it in different ways. It’s hard to maintain the lifestyle changes you aim to achieve. It doesn’t matter whether your aim is exercise, good diet, weight management, and stress reduction. The health experts explain it takes a great deal of dedication and determination in achieving it.

The process of achieving a healthy state can be influenced by our daily activities; socioeconomic status, level of education, family, kin and social networks, gender, age, and interpersonal influences all affect the choice of lifestyle. A lot of people can maintain some healthy lifestyle over a short period but eventually find themselves in a state of relapse by going back to those unsafe/unhealthy habits that have negative effects on their health. The ultimate guide to achieving a ‘Healthy Living’ state is to focus more on the rewards rather than the process. 

PHYSICAL HEALTH

Physical health is the state of being free from illness or injury. It covers a wide range of areas including a healthy diet, healthy weight, dental health, personal hygiene, and sleep.

Physical wellness involves making good choices when it comes to management and control of the predisposing factors that impact the overall physical health, such as; Alcohol, Physical Activity and Body Movement, Sexual Health, Sleep, Stress, Illness Prevention, and Nutrition. Physical health refers to a person’s physical activity level, diet, nutrition, sleep cycle, and level of consumption of alcohol or drugs. The components of physical health help in the assessments to determine an individual’s physical health. This can be achieved by maintaining safe health practices like;

• Living a healthful lifestyle to reduce the risk of disease – Such as practicing good personal hygiene and  reducing the risk of injuries
• Maintaining physical fitness – This can protect and develop the endurance ability of a person’s breathing and heart function, muscular strength, flexibility, and body composition. Working out at home with exercise equipment can be a good idea if you can’t afford a gym membership.
• Healthy diet – The human body needs some required amount of nutrients to maintain its healthy state, and this can be achieved through good eating habits and a balanced diet.

Physical health can influence mental health to improve the overall optimal health of an individual and also improve the quality of life. This means that having good physical health can easily translate to good mental health. For example, mental illness, such as eating disorders (Anorexia), may increase the risk of extreme weight loss. This can have a negative health effect on physical health.

MENTAL HEALTH

Mental health refers to a person’s emotional, social, and psychological well-being. Healthy living involves more than physical health, it also includes emotional or mental health. Being healthy mentally comes with a lot of benefits; It offers a feeling of well-being and inner strength, we enjoy our life and environment, we can be creative, learn, try new things, and take risks, we are better able to cope with difficult times in our personal and professional lives. All these shape our overall health and help us in achieving the goal of a healthy lifestyle.